Estes Park Opinion

A different Christmas -- there can still be miracles?

As I listen to "Jingle Bell Rock," it has rarely felt less Christmasy. There wasn't even any snow, until this week. And Grinches lurk everywhere. As for miracles, well....

In a year pockmarked by tremendous loss, epidemic evacuations and sudden death, perhaps the only miracle is that those still standing ARE still standing, and the others watch over us, as angels. We can do nothing for those lost now -- or can we?

What can you say about this latest mad massacre of innocents? Except that it must not, shall not, happen again. But it will, unless changes are made. Simple, but radical changes -- mind-sets, laws, power, fire-power.

Who needs semi-automatic weapons, anyway? What harm will it do, if a segment of society is deprived this indulgence? Who will it harm? Versus who will it save? A no-brainer, if there ever was one. Do we allow other indulgences? Why are we so willing to sacrifice and bleed all over ourselves for these weapons of mass destruction? They are not even hidden -- except for conceal carry. Also an indulgence.

We don't allow such indulgences for other lethal hobbyists -- bombmakers, drug dealers, arsonists. Why do guns get special treatment? Are they the weapon of choice? If so, let's just be honest about it. Semi-automatic weapons have one reason to exist -- to kill people, lots of people, automatically, like a robot, in a short amount of time. Alive one moment, dead the next, it's so easy. Particularly when you're unstable to begin with, and have a perceived grudge and no perceived power but the guns. You don't even have to be a good shot -- just spray and go.

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Oh, we love our guns. Do we love them 'til death do us part, more than life itself? Apparently.

These particular Armageddons are fixable. We can turn it around. It takes resolve and ballsy courage. It's time to grow up and let the little kids have a chance to grow up. We live in a world of instant access, to all things. Weaponizing this world is a problem for most of us. A problem we have allowed. The moment is now. Carting weapons out of your own home is not a right. And is not right.

Weapons of mass destruction are just that. They are not hidden; they're carted to cathedrals and shopping malls and national parks -- and schools. They must be treated like WMDs -- or we have no business rooting out that particular evil in other countries. If we can't keep our own kids safe, what does that say about our ability to police the world? Not a lot.

We must rescue what is left of ourselves and sanity. This is the moment when we say "enough." Guns don't rule -- and they DO kill. Enough with the mass destruction, already.

The safety of children shouldn't even be an issue. The answer is not making prisons out of our schools. Part of the answer is strict gun control on weapons of mass destruction. Unstable people should not have access. Irresponsible people should not have access. Otherwise, who are we kidding?

It's time to protect ourselves from guns. And those unstable with guns. We've done it the NRA's way. It hasn't worked. Time to change the channel.

Victims aplenty await. The clock is ticking. Do we want more memorials or decent gun control? Do we love our guns more than our children? In guns we trust?

We are unbalanced, ever tipping, over, over.... Until we right ourselves, no one is safe, anywhere, anytime. This Christmas, we ask for compassion and mercy and understanding that we must do whatever it takes to prevent a Christmas nightmare like this from happening again, with missing children and unopened presents and heavy hearts. It is simple -- life versus death.

This is a country based on the common good. It would seem that "common good" dictates we be safe from nuts with guns. "A little child shall lead them...." Perhaps we can be led by these 20 Newtown children, to a world that makes sense, where kids can go to school knowing it's not the OK Corral and parents can be assured that when they kiss their kids goodbye in the morning, it's not for the last time.

Step up; man up. Who needs an assault rifle? Exact moments are strange. If they pass, you are left to wonder "what if" forever. How many "forevers" are we willing to sacrifice? Is it okay, as long as it's somebody else's "forever"? The tiniest moments can turn everything around. Bullying, disrespect, despair, misery, worship of violence, instability, non-inclusion, easy access to weapons, easy access to prey, easy access to fame and power, easy ways out -- all recipes for disaster.

We are at a funeral cliff, as well as a fiscal cliff. We have no right to the next memorials and supposed sorrow, if we do not act to change the situation. It will be our choice. The funeral cliff is here -- and will not disappear on its own. How hard is it to choose life? Surely, survival of the fittest does not mean those lucky enough or fast enough to outrun a crazy with automatic weapons. That's not a fair fight. And automatic weapons are not fair -- or protective. You can't kill scores of people with bows and arrows, knives or rocks -- they require engagement and a chance for the victims. Crazy weapons for crazy people require nothing on the part of the assassins but motivation -- a bleak, blank resolve, it's so easy. "Mass steria" is just a moment away.

For those asking, "What kind of world is this?," the answer is: "It's a world of our making." We can choose life or death, the light or the dark side.

The Second Amendment never even considered the possibility that crazies would be killing children regularly, with guns they couldn't foresee being invented for citizen usage. Our forefathers would cry.

But at the next "event," no one need cry, because it's foretold. This will be the new normal, unless we act.

The world is watching us, the protectors of humanity, to see how we protect our own. We are failing miserably, as President Obama said in his memorial to the survivors in Newtown Sunday. We are failing our children, by not keeping them safe. Until we choose to protect our children from guns, for goodness sakes, we are not the home of the brave and the free, but of the scared and the wimpy.

A true man's measure is not the gun. It is his willingness to stand up against the gun -- as the women at the Newtown elementary school chose to do, to save the children. Women manning up, in a positive way. Let's see if our lawmaker's can equal their courage. That's the only honest memorial.

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